The Number Field

I'm at school today for the first day of my summer work assignment, and Jenny is at work. Elena is spending the day (and most of the week) with our good friends Martin and Christine. We trust them completely, and Christine probably knows more about child care than we do, having worked as a nanny for a considerable time. When we went over to their place to drop off supplies last night, Christine gave us instructions on the proper use of the car seat without the base. It turns out that I hadn't been strapping the seat in as effectively as I should, and that the proper instructions were written on the car seat itself. This came as quite a blow to me, as I always try to read and follow the instructions.

Nevertheless, it's still hard to have left our baby with someone else. I think I'm most worried about the unexpected things she might do to cause them misery--Elena has almost always been good for me, and when she cries I can usually make things better quickly. I left a detailed explanation of our routine along with contact information for Jenny and me, and I suppose I can't do anything more than that except trust.

On Saturday we had Martin and Christine over for dinner, and I'm pretty proud of the menu we put together. Jenny made some excellent guacamole, which we had with tortilla chips as an appetizer. For a second appetizer or salad, I made insalata caprese . I grilled ribeye steaks over charcoal for the main course, along with corn on the cob and roasted asparagus.

For dessert, we had homemade cookies and cream ice cream. We made the ice cream in the french style, cooking egg yolks into a mix of milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. Although I didn't put the mixer together properly and caused some problems, Jenny caught it in time and saved the day. I think that this batch turned out better than our previous attempts, which were always "philadelphia style" ice cream, which means no eggs and no cooking in advance.

If problems crop up today (or this week), perhaps Christine will think back to that dinner and think "Mark and Jenny aren't so bad after all, I won't abandon their baby without calling them first." Of course, she would never actually do that, but I have to have something concrete to allay my fears.